Both? Both

Concerned looks fixated on the corner table in the break room for one of two reasons:

1. Aberrants were strictly prohibited from entering break rooms, cafeteria, offices, and so on. This rule is mostly ignored by the faculty but there are a handful that are a stickler for the rules.

2. The repeated, heavy thudding of Raian’s head on the table.

“How the hell did I forget?”

“Skill issue, mostly.”

Unali stuffed their face with a rather gourmet looking sandwich straight from a box colourfully labelled ‘A. A. FALOUX’. They didn’t even bother to shoot Raian a look, food was more important in this moment.

Raian felt a familiar sensation about the back of his head, with Mochi gently patting him in the hopes that it was reassuring. In a way, it made things better and worse. His gentle touch always soothed him, but at the same time, it was coming from the very person he’d felt he let down.

Bringing his chin to rest on the wooden table that has probably seen too much, the boy rest his head somewhat level to Raian’s.

“It’ll be alright, we don’t have to do anything special, just being outside is enough.” Mochi chimed with a smile.

His handler gave one final thud before rolling his head onto its side to set his sights on Unali with an uncomfortable amount of condiments plastering their face.

“What did you and God’s Wound do on your last excursion?” he spoke, slightly muffled.

The demon took a moment to swallow, shamelessly ignoring the mess about their face.

“We took a dive off the docks and swam out into the open ocean for a few miles. Pretty nice I’d say, aside from the seagulls.” They spoke, doing their best to get pieces of roast beef out their teeth.

Raian shuddered. The mere thought of being out in the open ocean sent out a wave of ‘nope’ in his brain.

While the Aberrants had to be mostly kept underground for the sake of observation, handlers are required to take their subjects outside of the facility every now and then; once every two weeks, at the least.

The man thought about how most handlers take their Aberrants to somewhere secluded to fully let loose or even take up bounties to hunt down roaming bands of outlaws skirting Tarin Oth, but that wasn’t Mochi.

If anything, he’d probably try making friends with the bandits.

Raian grumbled as he rolled once more to face Mochi, immediately met with those same golden eyes. The squid extended a tendril to touch his handler’s forehead, slightly reddened by the repeated blunt force trauma.

“You’re all red now.” Mochi frowned.

“Yeah? Well, so are you.” The man extended a finger to poke the boy in the same spot.

“He’s always red, dumbass.” Unali spat out a chunk of lettuce in the process. “Didn’t you take a bunch of notes down?”

Raian shot back up as his brow furled, turning to the breast pocket in his coat that he typically kept his stethoscope in, whipping out a notebook that fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.

As people left the room, Mochi saw the opportunity to dart toward the kitchen space, reaching up on the tips of his toes for a glass that, quite frankly, whoever cleaned it last needs to do a better job.

He brought the glass down to the countertop with a heavy thud, immediately going forward to reach for an item higher up on the shelves, existing just barely out of his reach. It was a slightly beaten-up metal container with most of its writing having worn off over the years.

A brown hand clasped it with ease, with Mochi arching his head backward to see Raian standing over him, flapping a bit of paper about the squid’s head to draw his attention.

“Have a look,” he placed a spare about his shoulder, “see if anything here sounds good to you.”

Clasping the notebook in his hands, Mochi’s eyes darted across the words before him. Many of them he didn’t know the meaning of, which just made them all the more interesting to him.

Raian dug his fingernails into the brim of the tightly sealed container, springing open with a flourish of pink dust and a cough. A little bit of his nail fractured off in the process, and he hoped it didn’t fall into the powder within, but overall, it wasn’t a huge loss for him.

The scent was aggressively pungent, smelling as if someone had concentrated an entire field of strawberries into a singular container. He wasn’t sure how long this thing had even been here, maybe someone brought it in with the intent to dump the problem onto someone else. While it did have a slight medicinal aroma to it, he was positive this bright, almost hot pink powder was meant for consumption.

With the swift open and close of an unspoiled fridge, a spoonful of strawberry powder, and a glassful of almost-spoilt milk, Raian had on his hands what most people would call an acceptable beverage.

It required an egregious amount of mixing though, to the point it was almost a workout. The incessant clacking of metal on glass annoyed one or two staff members present to tuck their newspapers under their arms and leave, but it’s not like Raian cared much.

Mochi didn’t mind the little cloud of clumps that didn’t mix that sat atop the milk, they were like little explosions of flavour, and Raian still couldn’t fathom how he enjoyed it.

The two leaned up against the countertop in the meantime. If Raian listened closely, he’d hear those little cogs in Mochi’s mind turning with effort. The focused silence between them was only broken by the occasional sip.

“What’s… uh,” the squid looked closer at the papers, “Pablo’s Place?”

“Oh, it’s this little pizzeria off in the upper districts. Me and Unali have passed by there a few times.”

“Pizzeria?” Mochi tilted his head.

“Pizzeria – they do pizzas.”

The boy continued to stare blankly at his handler, blinking once or twice, and yet still completely unaware of the words coming out of his mouth.

“What is that?” he leaned in, asking quietly.

“Oh my god, did you never tell him about pizzas?” Unali yelled from across the room, turning the heads of almost everyone within, “All this time and you never told him! What kind of handler are you?!”

“Honestly!” Faloux chimed in, seemingly appearing out of nowhere as he slammed the fridge shut.

Raian jumped at the old man’s sudden appearance, seemingly carrying another box marked ‘A. A. FALOUX’.

“And you call yourself a handler?” the silver elf tutted.

“Why is everyone suddenly on my ass about this!” Raian’s frustrations surmounted, “It’s not like I haven’t taken Mochi to nice places – it’s just things like pizza or the beach that we haven’t done yet.”

“You haven’t taken the boy to the beach?” Faloux’s eyebrows shot up, tossing a chunk of mozzarella past his lips, “Good heavens, I should have you replaced!”

“I’ll do it!” Unali cackled from the corner of the room.

“Done!” Faloux pointed at the horned individual eating his food.

The rather exasperated head of a young, black-haired woman peered past the frame of the old elf.

“Adrian, you’ll need to go through a mountain of paperwork to make that happen.” His assistant spoke in the midst of a deep sigh.

“Ah,” he chewed, “never mind then.”

The man’s lengthy, silver hair spun with a flourish as he twirled and made a quick dash for the door with his assistant in tow. Raian looked down toward his Aberrant, it being blatantly obvious he’s hiding a smile behind that glass of milk.

“So, what’ll it be – pizza or beach?” the man put a smile back on.

Mochi’s eyes met with his as he entered a state of deep contemplation. After a few moments he began to shuffle in his spot out of indecisiveness, figuring he just needed a little bit more brain energy. He solved this by chugging the remainder of the strawberry milk, coming with a hint of brain freeze, eventually reaching a resounding conclusion.

“Both!” he declared, extending a finger toward his handler’s nose.

“Both?”

“Both!” the boy repeated.

Raian, in turn, also entered a state of deep contemplation. Both were doable, but timing was the issue. The two locations were quite far apart. Maybe he could warrant a late return as long as he put a notice in. That might work. Money though? Now that was another issue. Being an intern at this place wasn’t exactly a lavishly paying job.

“Both it is, then.” The handler extended his arm to wipe a smidge of residual milk from Mochi’s lip with his sleeve.

The squid raised his arms in a Mochi-patented victory pose known only to Raian and Unali, his mind racing in a storm of wonder, thinking about what he’ll get to see again after being kept down here for the majority of his life.

“Unali, I’m stealing your wallet.” Raian said flatly.